The Void (Witching Savannah Book 3) by J. D. Horn Read Free Book Online

this moment to kick in, and hot tears fell from my eyes. “I am so, so grateful to you for all you have done to help Maisie. To help all of us, really.” I gave her a squeeze. “We’re all just treading water here. We had no intention of excluding you, we just hadn’t gotten around to including you.”
    Her eyes narrowed and she pursed her lips, but I could feel her sense of affront begin to fall away. “Fine, fine.” She patted my back and pulled a tissue from her pocket. “It’s clean,” she said as she dabbed at my cheeks. She stepped away from me, taking my aunts and myself into her gaze. Her expression had mellowed, but I could tell, although she may have forgiven me for the oversight, Iris and Ellen had not yet been cleared of culpability.
    “Maybe,” Ellen said, “we should put this talk off until we have a better handle on what is happening around here.”
    “No,” I said. “If Maisie needs me to help heal, I will be there for her.” I felt a thud in my chest. “But if she is still connected to Wren, I need to know it, so that I can deal with her.” I turned my focus to Abigail. “I want to do this. I want to talk to Maisie about that day .”
    “Then there is no way you are doing this without us,” Iris said, emphasizing the “no.” Her tone left no room for debate.
    Abby acquiesced with a nod. “All right then. She’s waiting for us upstairs. Let’s get this done.”

    We found her in her room, sitting on the floor, cross-legged in the lotus position. Here was the sister who tried to murder me. The sister I had risked everything to give another chance.
    Her silky blonde hair had been plaited into a French braid. Her eyes remained closed, her heart-shaped face smooth and composed. She seemed bathed in what I knew to be a hard-fought-for serenity. It’ll be quite a while before I’m able to pull that pose off again. The thought hit me from nowhere, but in the name of all that is holy, I could not understand why it would be the first thing to come to mind. Well, that wasn’t quite true. I knew it had already begun again. My insidious compulsion to compare myself with my sister. It was a lifelong habit, one I thought I’d kicked. I thought I’d grown up a bit over the last several months, but darned if I wasn’t standing there ticking off all the ways she managed to outshine me without even trying.
    I resented her for her serenity when my insides raged like a swirling ocean of fear, anger, and, yes, jealousy. A dark fragment of my soul, the part of me that wanted to strike out and hurt her as she had hurt me, took over. “Wren is back.”
    Her eyes flashed open, and she looked up at me. I quivered when I saw the heat that burned in her lovely blue eyes. What was it I saw there? Shame? Grief? Anger? An odd blend of all three? I had achieved my goal of shaking her, and I hated myself for it.
    “I know. He’s been calling out to me. Trying to get me to join him. Telling me to find a way to finish what I started.”
    Abby gasped. “Sugar, you should have told me.”
    Maisie’s eyes flicked to Abigail. “I’m telling you now. I’m telling you all, because I want you to know what you’re up against. You’ve been leading me to create these safe little worlds for myself, realities where I can work through my madness. But in the real world, none of us are safe,” she said, unfolding her lithe limbs without ever taking her eyes off me. She rocked up to her knees and stood. “And I am not crazy. I’m not.” She took a step toward me, almost as if she were challenging me to flee, as if she were testing me to see if I could move past my fear of her. I felt a bead of cold sweat break free and trace down my spine. I wanted to love her, but I wanted to run at the same time.
    I held my ground, not so much from bravery, but as the intensity of her expression pinned me to the spot. “I know you aren’t crazy , but . . .”
    “What then? Loony? Don’t try to lie to me.” She looked at me